Author: Marc Weidenbaum

Disquiet Junto Project 0747: And a One (1/3)

The Assignment: Record the first third of a trio.

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Each Thursday in the Disquiet Junto music community, a new compositional challenge is set before the group’s members, who then have five days to record and upload a track in response to the project instructions.

Membership in the Junto is open: just join and participate. (A SoundCloud account is helpful but not required.) There’s no pressure to do every project. The Junto is weekly so that you know it’s there, every Thursday through Monday, when your time and interest align.

Tracks are added to the SoundCloud playlist for the duration of the project. Additional (non-SoundCloud) tracks also generally appear in the llllllll.co discussion thread.

A full list of the tracks, both on (50 of them) and off (3 more) SoundCloud, are in a read-only Google spreadsheet.

Disquiet Junto Project 0747: And a One (1/3)
The Assignment: Record the first third of a trio.

Please note: While this project is the start of a semi-annual three-part sequence that will unfold over the course of three consecutive weeks, you can participate in any or all three of those parts. 

Step 1: This week’s Junto project is the first in a sequence intended to encourage and reward collaboration. You will be recording something with the understanding that it will remain unfinished for the time being. Your part will be done, but more will happen. Read on.

Step 2: The plan is for you to record a short and original piece of music using any instrumentation of your choice. Conceive the piece as something that leaves room for something else — other instruments, other people — to join in. (Keep in mind that your piece resulting from this week’s project will be panned to the left in the second and third weeks of this sequence.)

Step 3: Record a short piece of music, roughly two to three minutes in length, as described in Step 2. 

Step 4: This is important: be sure to make your track downloadable because it may be used by someone else in the next Disquiet Junto project, and the one after that.

Tasks Upon Completion:

Label: Include “disquiet0747” (no spaces/quotes) in the name of your track.

Upload: A person participating in the Disquiet Junto should post only one track per weekly project (SoundCloud account preferred but not required). If on occasion you feel inspired to post more than one track (whether to a single account or across multiple accounts), you should clarify which is the “main” rendition for consideration by fellow members and (if on SoundCloud) for inclusion in the SoundCloud playlist.

Share: Post your track and a description/explanation at https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0747-and-a-one-1-3/

Discuss: Listen to and comment on the other tracks.

Additional Details:

Length: The length is usually up to the musician, but for this one, please, per the instructions, keep it to roughly two to three minutes in length. Thanks.

Deadline: Monday, April 27, 2026, 11:59pm (that is: just before midnight) wherever you are.

About: https://disquiet.com/junto/

Newsletter: https://juntoletter.disquiet.com/

License: It’s preferred (but not required) to set your track as downloadable and allowing for attributed remixing (i.e., an attribution Creative Commons license).

Please Include When Posting Your Track:

More on the 747th weekly Disquiet Junto project, And a One (1/3) — The Assignment: Record the first third of a trio — disquiet.com/0747.

The Process Can Feel Magical

Talking trios

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

This paragraph appears in the Disquiet Junto email newsletter that will go out shortly after midnight, Pacific time, via juntoletter.disquiet.com

The short version of this is that if you have subscribed to this email list for some time and have yet to do a Disquiet Junto project, then this one, the one starting on April 23, 2023, is one to consider doing. The gist is this: this week you record a solo piece of music, not a complete piece, but a piece that will be added to, potentially, by other musicians over the following two weeks. Next week, many if not most of the tracks recorded this week will become duets, thanks to the additions by musicians other than yourself — again, with space left intentionally. Then finally two weeks from now, other musicians will add something else, completing a trio. The process can feel magical, especially when the same solo becomes numerous duets, and the same duet, multiple trios — which does happen sometimes. But what really happens is simpler: by recording music that leaves room for other music, you learn something about constraints, and listening, and sharing. And when you fill that space in a subsequent week, you learn the same things, from a radically different perspective.

Software (1982)

And other science fiction greats

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Stoked to be part of this latest series of Hilobrow essays, all about “analyzing and celebrating our favorite… Seventies (1974–83) sci-fi novels and comics.” I wrote about Rudy Rucker’s foundational cyberpunk classic Software (1982), the first of his four-novel (“tetralogy”) Ware series. These Hilobrow essays are being posted one at a time. Mine will be up down the road. What great company to be in. Deb Chachra, Douglas Wolk, Seth, and so many more. Details and the first few at hilobrow.com.

On Repeat: Akinmusire / Halvorson, Paperclip Minimiser, Ambient Modular

Home/office playlist

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

On Sundays I try to at least quickly note some of my favorite listening from the week prior — things I would later regret having not written about in more depth, so better to share here briefly than not at all.

▰ New collaboration between trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire and guitarist Mary Halvorson, Slo-Mo Neon Luminate Hoverings, gets a preview with the forthcoming (June 12, 2026) album’s fourth track (of nine), appropriately title “Soundcheck.” It’s especially exciting because it appears (check around 25 seconds in) to evidence Akinmusire employing electronics to layer his instrument and, soon after, to develop foundational pads.

An advance note from the releasing label, Nonesuch, confirms this:

Though Halvorson regularly uses effects pedals on her guitar, Akinmusire’s use of one on Slo-Mo Neon Luminate Hoverings is new. Having recently gotten an updated model of the Line 6, Halvorson was passing her old ones along to friends. “Ambrose was interested in trying a Line Six. I gave him one five minutes before the rehearsal and was amazed how quickly he was able to do incredible shit on it … in literally five minutes,” she says.

“But I’ve been watching you, I’ve been watching Bill [Frisell] and other people use it for a long time,” Akinmusire says. “I approached it as if it were its own musician. I played and it would process the sound and then I would choose to react to that or not.

▰ Super dessicated minimal dub techno from Paperclip Minimiser, aka John Howes. The embed isn’t working so get the set, titled II, at Bandcamp.

▰ The YouTube account Ambient Modular has been uploading solid 15-minute sessions, largely with the same set-up, by appearances, providing a glimpse into the variety a single system is capable of. The streams happen daily starting, per the channel’s information, at “00:00 AM UTC (9:00 PM JST).”